This seems to be a trend lately. Bishop Joseph Galante has announced he will not give Communion to New Jersey’s governor at his installation Mass. Of course, Gov. Jim McGreevey’s spokesman says he never intended to go, but that doesn’t diminish the impact of the bishop’s public statement.
Galante said that it was McGreevey’s divorce and remarriage without an annulment, as well as his support for abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, and the whole litany of immoral abuses, that led to the decision.
However, Galante never says whether that’s a blanket interdict or just for his Masses. And he sends mixed signals when he says that Cardinal Arinze’s statement that pro-abortion Catholic politicians are in grave sin and should not receive Communion is just Arinze’s opinion and not official Vatican policy. Um, Canon 915? “Those who are excommunicated or interdicted after the impostion or declaration of the penalty and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
I guess it’s another conditional bravo to a bishop. But it’s a good start. I can hear spines growing all across the country!
Two cheers. One for saying it. One for backing it up with action or the threat to act.
One Bronx cheer for not backing up Cardinal Arinze and pointing out that he was only applying Canon 915.
The 59th Governor Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner committee must be sweating now.
“The 59th Governor Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner committee must be sweating now.”
And they’re thinking: “If only we could forget about all those babies being bloodily ripped out of their mothers’ wombs for a night of hilarity and good humor…”